The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), the umbrella organisation of all commercial vehicle owners and petrol tanker drivers in Nigeria, has threatened to withdraw its services in seven days if outstanding claims owed to its members by government and oil marketers are not paid.

The claims relate to monies owed them for transporting petroleum products to different destinations across the country.

The federal government had in January 2016 reviewed downwards, the freight rate due to the transporters which they rejected. The rate lasted till May 11 but government on May 20 increased the rate.

Giving the warning after an emergency meeting in Abuja yesterday, NARTO President, Alhaji Kassim Bataiya, said the transporters’ major demand was the immediate full payment of their accrued outstanding claims from January to May 2016 at the old rate applicable from 2011 to December 2015 by the Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF) Management Board.

“If by seven days from today all the authorities concerned do not do what they are expected to do, we will withdraw our services, meaning that we will park our trucks in our garages and the trucks will not move anywhere,” Bataiya warned.

The implication, according stakeholders, is that there will be no movement of petroleum products nationwide as 98 per cent of petroleum products are distributed via trucks.

•Text courtesy of Daily Trust. Photo shows NARTO President, Alhaji Kassim Bataiya.